Save Afghan Women & Children with Health Care

Dear Friend,

A Special Day – Today!  Matching Funds Available!

Today we have a great opportunity which we would like your help with. There are matching funds available for ALL donations made to this project today. This is a guaranteed bonus!

Starting at 9am EDT on May 13^th, GlobalGiving is matching donations on our project! Any online donation up to $1,000 made today will go even further to help our work. You can donate any time between 9am EDT and midnight to have your donation partially matched by GlobalGiving –guaranteed! Just click here and support our program on May 13^th.

The percentage of the match will be determined at midnight; the more given today the greater our bonus!

Your donation will help us continue to provide quality healthcare and education to Afghan women and children!

Please help by donating  to our project today, May 13th. Thank you.

AIL runs a comprehensive Health Program that encompasses health treatment, health education and health training. The workshop program is very popular and in 2014 AIL provided 11 Reproductive Health Workshops for 390 women. These women learned about their bodies, pregnancy and birth and newborn care. They are now much better equipped to care for themselves as they go through life.

AIL’s 3 hour Expectant Mother Workshop (EM) is another quick and easy way for these women to learn what they need to know. In 2014, AIL gave 15 EM Workshops for 380 women (190  pregnant) and remarkably all of the 137 births recorded so far were at clinics rather than a risky home birth situation. In the four years this program has been running only one recorded birth occurred at home out of 439 births. In addition to its focused workshops, AIL has provided thousands of women with reproductive health education through the AIL clinics and Community Health Workers posts.

One woman who gave birth at an AIL clinic and said, “I lost my two other babies while giving birth at home because my husband’s s family never trusted in clinics. Then last week an AIL Community Health Worker came to my house. She spoke with my husband and his  family about the dangers of delivery at home. Moreover, she explained the reason why my other two babies died. Fortunately, she was able to convince them to  let me go to the clinic for the birth. Now I am in the clinic with  my baby daughter who is alive and the doctor says she is fine. My husband is so happy and  he is so sorry for not letting me  come to clinic for last two births. He is now believing in AIL health services. I also thank AIL for saving my baby girl’s life. And I am going to tell this story to all my relatives and family in order to change their negative minds.”

Thank you for your interest in Afghan women’s health issues.

AIL runs a comprehensive Health Program that encompasses health treatment, health education and health training. Workshops that relate to pregnancy and childbirth are highly regarded and quickly fill up once posted. Women know that the country has an alarmingly high rate of maternal death and injury and infant mortality. Women want to do the right thing to be safe, once they know what that is. AIL has given two Reproductive Health Workshops for 80 women in the last 2 months with the total for the year now at 285 women trained.

AIL’s 3 hour Expectant Mother Workshop (EM) is another quick and easy way for these women to learn what they need to know. The topics covered include: antenatal and postnatal care, safe childbirth and infant care, child spacing and breast feeding as well as the importance of keeping in touch with clinics or Community Health Workers. The workshops are held in more remote areas where women have few medical options. The women are under  AIL clinic observation and report back with their newborn for 3 months following birth.

One participant said, "This is the first time that we attended such a workshop and this is the first organization that gives workshops like this for the pregnant women in our area. This shows AIL really cares and reaches out to all people. At the end of the workshop we received a nice new baby kit that contained a hat, pinafore, swaddling, band swaddling, shirt, sun suit, pads and diapers, panties and soap.” So far in 2014, AIL has given 13 EM Workshops for 340 women (170  pregnant) and remarkably all of the births recorded so far were at clinics rather than a risky home birth situation. In addition to its focused workshops, AIL has provided thousands of women with reproductive health education through the AIL clinics and Community Health Workers posts.

Thank you for your interest in Afghan women’s health issues. We have included Creating Hope International’s 2014 newsletter which contains information on AIL’s work. We hope that you will take a moment to read through it.

• Newsletter2014_FINAL_v2.pdf (PDF)
  

The Safer World Fund has selected our project to support through a 50% match on all donations made while funds last! Your donation of $10 becomes $15, or $50 becomes $75.

Since you have supported our project in the past, you know that the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) programs seeks to help Afghans reach their full potential. Recently, Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, founder and CEO of AIL, said that she believes that in order for people to reach their full potential they need to be educated, healthy, safe and have a stable economy. When people do not feel safe, they cannot leave their houses. This means they cannot get an education or work, and when this happens, the whole economy suffers. Also, when a person is malnourished, they cannot learn or work. 

AIL is helping to address all four of these issues through it’s programs. AIL offers Afghans a safe place to come and learn by working closely with the communities where its programs exist. These programs offer education, including health education and resources on how to live a healthy life, which lead to people having the skills they need to be employed. People who are employed contribute to the economy and the security of a community. AIL’s holistic programs address all of the needs of those that they work with in a culturally sensitive manner, and in the end the communities are better educated, healthier, more economically stable and ultimately safer.

We thank you for your past contributions to our efforts to provide healthcare to Afghan women. As the situation continues to change in Afghanistan, your support has become even more important. We hope that you will rise to the challenge and help us take advantage of this matching opportunity!

AIL’s health program truly is a life saver; providing people with quality care where there are few, if any, other medical options. The health program is based on a holistic approach providing treatment and education together. So far in 2014, over 119,000 people have received care through clinics or Community Health Worker posts (CHWs), and health education has reached over 69,000 through clinics, CHWs, and workshops. This quality of care and extraordinary reach of the AIL program would not be possible without donations from people like you. Thank you.

Here are a couple of the many life saving and life changing stories we hear:

A clinic patient:” Lailoma, a pregnant woman came to clinic about 20 weeks ago. She had high blood pleasure and high temperature. She was prescribed some tablets then she had to come to clinic every two weeks. On week 36 after a checkup, she was referred to hospital in the city for an operation. Fortunately, it was successful  and her baby girl was healthy after birth. On the tenth day  after her delivery, Lailoma came to clinic to thank the staff for saving her and child’s lives.”

From a reproductive health workshop participant: “My name is Anita and I strongly suggest that AIL hold such workshops for all Afghan women in order to decrease the rate of child and maternal death. I am a university student and the topics shocked me. It is so vital for every woman to attend such workshops and learn about reproductive health. I am going to transfer what I learned in this workshop to every Afghan women I see from now on. I am going to stop mothers’ deaths. I thank AIL. “